The present invention relates to physical therapy and in particular to attachments from a walker to a wheelchair to assist a patient practicing walking to prevent falls and to rest when fatigue.
Stroke victims and other patients go through an often long and difficult recovery therapy process required to regain strength and control of muscles. One of the most difficult and important aspects of recovery is recovering the ability to walk. Physical therapists often use walkers to train patients on walking to build strength, endurance, and balance. Such training requires an additional personnel to push a wheelchair along behind the patient in case patient is tired or loses balance. Unfortunately, when the wheelchair is not positioned carefully to allow the patient to easily sit, the act of walking often exposes the patient to a risk of falling, which may result in injury.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,351,901 discloses a gate training tool which attaches at one end to a wheelchair and at the other end to a walker. The '091 patent states that “Any form of clamp, hitch, removable connection, or other mechanism for removably attaching the gait training tool 10 to the wheelchair 14 may be used, . . . ”, making it clear that the form of the attachment to the wheelchair is not important. Thus, while the tool of the '901 patent somewhat relieves the need for a second personnel to push the wheelchair, the device of the '901 patent allows the wheelchair to twist and turn as the patient walks, and does not position the wheelchair directly behind the patient to allow the patient to easily sit.
Further, during development, the present inventor tested pairs of couplings which, like the '901 patent, are loosely coupled to the wheelchair. The resulting device allowed the wheelchair to move laterally, creating an uncomfortable experience for the patient, not holding the wheelchair directly behind the patient. As a result, a patient trying to sit may fall, and the chance of injury from a fall is increased by the presence of the wheelchair.